What is Structured Data?

Structured data is a standardized way of formatting information on your website so search engines can easily understand it. It's the umbrella term for various markup formats, with schema markup being the most common type.

Instead of search engines trying to interpret your content from plain text, structured data explicitly labels each piece of information. It tells search engines "this is the author," "this is the publish date," "this is a rating," and so on.

Why structured data matters

Structured data helps search engines display your content more effectively in search results. It can lead to rich snippets, knowledge panels, and featured snippets that make your listing stand out.

Pages with structured data often get higher click-through rates because they provide more information directly in search results. They also help search engines understand your content better, which can indirectly improve your rankings.

How Structured Data Works

Structured data uses specific formats like JSON-LD (the most recommended), Microdata, or RDFa. These formats wrap your content with labels that search engines recognize.

For a blog post, structured data might identify your headline, author, publish date, featured image, and article body. For a product page, it might include price, availability, and ratings.

Structured Data for Blog Owners

Most modern blogging platforms automatically add basic structured data to your posts. This typically includes Article schema with your headline, author, and publish date.

You can add more specific structured data for things like FAQs, how-to guides, or breadcrumb navigation. Use Google's Rich Results Test to check what structured data your pages currently have and whether it's working correctly.